Today's moron of the day

[giza]

I just had an individual say "My comic is copyrighted, therefore you're not allowed to write about it on WikiFur!" BZZT. Wrong!

It just boggles my mind that people can be THAT clueless about the nature of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Especially a person who took the time and trouble to "register their copyright with the copyright office".

For the record, here are the facts on those things (and more): http://www.eff.org/legal/CyberLaw_Course/


Oh, and Happy Yerfday to denimwizard. (Most definitely NOT a moron!)

[Edit: Just to clarify, Fair Use isn't even part of the picture here. Fair use is involved when copy text from a copyrighted work for purposes of critique, satire, etc. In this case, no text has been copied from the comic in question.]

Comments

Seems like fair use to me

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

Especially if you're not copying the whole thing verbatim, but using a few thoughts, sporadic quotes, and ideas...

Re: Seems like fair use to me

[giza.livejournal.com]

No, it's not Fair Use. Fair Use involves copying limited parts of a work for purposes of critique, parody, etc. No text is being copied here.

It's okay to copy facts and ideas (http://www.eff.org/legal/CyberLaw_Course/cyberlaw.006).

That's why I'm pissed off enough to have written this entry. They tried to invoke copyright law on something that wasn't a copyright issue at all.

[camstone.livejournal.com]

But why would you want to, if they didn't want it written about there?

I mean, I understand your point about copyright law, (having a patent and dealing with governmental issues,) so there is no legal way from stopping you... but I guess I don't understand why you'd want to go against their wishes when they've made it known that it bothers them? Why not just let someone else do it?

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Part of it is that all Wikis are entered by lots of fans out there instead of just one or two people typing madly for the rest of their lives. Anyone can add data on anyone. This freestyle system is fast and popular, but suffers two systemic flaws. One, there's not a lot of editorial control since anyone and everyone can write to it. And two, it is attractive to that group of attention-whore commonly known as trolls, allowing them to be as ugly as they like with little retaliation.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Because WikiFur is an encycloedpia of the furry fandom (http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/WikiFur:About).

By demanding that we not write about the comic, I think that the individual is, in a sense, asking that we rewrite history. And I'm not going to do that. I think rewriting history just because someone says so is dishonest and unethical.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

response: Then we shant copy it on Wikifur. But we can still talk about it, review it, and debate the merits (or demerits) of the comic all we like.

People amaze me these days...

[silver-huskey.livejournal.com]

"My comic is copyrighted, therefore you're not allowed to write about it on WikiFur!"

What makes this person think that just because the comic is copyrighted to him, it can't be discussed in a public setting? What makes him think he has more of a right than professionals any other fields? If copyright did work that way, there would be no reviews, discussions, debates, or publicity (good or bad). =p Oh wait, you stated that this person was a moron. Never mind. XD

[skippyfox.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this means I'm not allowed to tell anybody my RL name because my parents thought it up? omg that would rock

[duncandahusky.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree with you on this one; it'a side-effect of WikiFur's personal exclusion policy that maybe we need to clarify: if you don't want to be written about, that's fine - that does not and will not mean that your name or your works won't be mentioned. As you say, you can't rewrite history, no matter how much you want to.

(By the way, you need to edit your preferences so your edits are automatically marked as patrolled :-)

[giza.livejournal.com]

> (By the way, you need to edit your preferences so your edits are
> automatically marked as patrolled :-)

Oh, awesome! I just set that.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

And of course you'll just leave us in the dark as to what comic and person these are ;)

[giza.livejournal.com]

If you poke around WikiFur, I'm sure you can figure it out. :-)

I didn't mention their name explicitly, because the object of my post was to vent a little and to talk about the realities of copyright law in the US, not try and cause this person to become the target of any harassment.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Why would someone complain about publicity? Is their comic "not furry, dammit"?

[giza.livejournal.com]

Because they left the fandom (http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Leaving_the_fandom).

But then again, Lance Rund totally flipped out on us some months ago when we mentioned about him buying that Goldenwolf painting for $10,000 at FC's Art Auction, so who knows!

Maybe we need to have annual WikiFur awards for things like, "worst legal arugment used", "lamest excuse for exclusion", etc.

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

HEY! Wikifur is copyrighted! You can't talk about it in your LiveJournal!

And my name is a trademark. You may not speak my name, ever!

[giza.livejournal.com]

Actually, all the text on it is copyrighted.

Under the GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html). :-)

Rhetorical question, but one that must be put out there....

[nemetfox.livejournal.com]

Why the hell would anyone complain about something that abounts to free advertising?

Re: Rhetorical question, but one that must be put out there....

[giza.livejournal.com]

The comic has long since been discontinued, and the authors have "left the fandom", so advertising isn't going to be of any benefit to them.

[netcrimes.livejournal.com]

If all you did was write about it, he is a total moron and a half.

[thraxarious.livejournal.com]

Its most likely they don't want ANY mention of ever being in the fandom at all. Again, all those silly fears that some employer might connect them with being furry, even if they never did draw any "innapropriate" art.

Its likely why they made the seriously lame attempt at "Copywright law". eh.

If they don't want it repeated

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

...Don't write it to begin with. Seems like the safest course of action.

[brahma-minotaur.livejournal.com]

Pfft. If he or she has such a problem, the best thing to do is to simply ignore Wikifur. It works for trolls, it would work for something as harmless as mentioning something elsewhere.

People boggle me too, sometimes.

[giza.livejournal.com]

They could have also been a little nicer about the whole thing. For example, they could have asked us if we would modify the article to mention that they're no longer involved in furry. But nooooooo, they had to get all demanding from the get go.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that for someone that has left furry fandom, he's very much aware of what's going on in Furry circles. If he'd truly left, how did he even know that someone made an entry about his zine in WikiFur? (And for that matter, how did he know about WikiFur itself?)

[skippyfox.livejournal.com]

I can do you one better. There's a fur who has threatened to sue over both copyright and trademark violations for using his nickname in the following manner (censored to protect the innocent):

"You should not trust Divef*x."

(Oh wait...no innocent names to protect ;)

[giza.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but everyone already knows he's a douschebag. :-P

[gen-talon.livejournal.com]

.....hmm..my question is this...

What's so wrong about writing about some comic on Wikifur?

A synopsis of the situation

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

The creator did not wish to be associated with WikiFur or the furry fandom. They considered the comic "not furry", and indeed not anthropomorphic, though I disagreed with their definition of that. The article had their name on it, as the creator of the comic. We had previously removed the article about them, but this did not satisfy them. They wanted their the entire entry including their name removed as well. We refused, because we do not consider the identity of an author to fall under our personal information policy (http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/WikiFur:Personal_information), and certainly the removal of a comic that is of interest to those in the fandom is not on, regardless of the intended audience. It bubbled over today (in the middle of a vandalism spree, which probably didn't help the replies). I made a long detailed reply explaining the reasoning behind the above (history is important, so is respect for those who create it, we compromise by removing personal information but keeping public actions and creations) which they have probably not read yet.